Sunday, 31 October 2010

Our first full year has been a great success and we can not fault productivity of plot and what we have grown with a couple of exceptions.

I will start with the negatives for the year they are as follows-

Evesham sprouts all blown not sure if this is to do with too much nitrogen, although I did read on GYO grapevine that they are prone to this. We will try a different variety next year.

Mellons in the tunnel only had 3 eatable ones off 5 plants, I think I may have planted them too late. We will do more research and reading on how to grow these for next year but will try again.

Gooseberry, redcurrant and blackcurrant no fruits on any, we are not sure if this is normal in first year? They are all healthy so lets hope next year brings home the fruit.

Now on to the successful crops which there are plenty as follows-

1. Spuds, spuds, spuds what can I say, our earlies were fantastic cropping and tasting we are just finishing them off now. As soon as they were dug up we threw in some chicken manure pellets and planted Sarpo mira in same beds which I dug up last week and yet another fantastic crop. We should have enough to see us through until at least spring.

2. Courgettes we now realise 4 plants are far too many and to be honest I am not that keen on them although they are good to give away to family and friends.

5. Various pumpkins my personal favourite was turks turban they did not crop as well as the others but their look wins it for me.

6. Florence Fennel this is supposed to be quite difficult to grow so I am impressed by the results I have had. We still have some in the ground and are using as and when.

7. Garlic garlic garlic we have so much there is no danger of vampires visiting us for at least another 6 months, I also planted next years garlic on 12th October 2010.

8. Celeriac ate my first one today with roast lamb and still have over 20 in ground to be picked as and when.

9. Beetroot the wifes favourite loads pickled and loads still in situ on plot.

10. Jeruselem artichokes first time I have ever grown or tasted them they are delicous and did not give me wind as I was told they would(must be my guts of steel).

11. Cabbages in particular Atlas see previous posts for photos.

12. Swedes excellent crop taste good and plenty left in situ for winter use.

13. Mange tout golden sweet they sound like they taste and great croppers.

14. Lots of salad crops lettuce, radishes etc.

15. Strawberries nothing beats the taste of home grown ones.

16. Parsnips we had our first one's today lovely variety was countess.

17. Last but by no means least tomatoes look at previous posts to see varietys and pictures but all I can say they have been coming out of our ears. We have made near on a 100 jars of chutney so family and friends will be sorted at Christmas.

The above are in no particular order but I have to say it has been a garlic, spud and tomatoe year for me.

We have now started planning for next year and number one on my list of priorities is a proper polytunnel, we are looking for something 10ft wide and 25ft long not sure which company to use yet.
Crops we have in ground at presnt are various spring and winter brasicas, garlic, swede, celeriac, parsnips, artichokes, florence fennel and beetroots.

I wont stay away as long this time so I will be back with more updates soon.

Saturday, 24 July 2010

I went to plot today just to potter around and harvest some more veg and as you can see from pictures below I managed to pull a cabbage which weighed in at 6 and 1/2lb. The variety is durham early just had some for my dinner and it was lovely and sweet and still lots left I think it will take a week to eat it all up.
More courgettes another basket full and another huge crop of french and runner beans, I have also got another good sized portion of tumbler toms which so far I seem to have right this year as they taste a lot sweeter. The trouble I am having at the moment with the tumblers is stopping the branches snapping off where there are so many tomatoes on the plant, last year I put 2 plants per basket but I think that is too much as they compete for nutrients and one definetley does suffice.

Also forgot to add pulled my red onions up today they are red baron an as you can see I have them drying outside on rack. I pulled my stutgarter onions last week they are on racks drying in shed I will take pictures soon and post them for you all to see. The carrots that you see in the picture are not mine they were kindly given to me by my lottie neighbour Will, they were absolutely gorgous very sweet and perfect with my dinner.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Firstly appolgies for not blogging my computer has packed up so waiting to get it fixed!!!!!!

The past few weeks we have been very busy harvesting our first crops Broad beans, runner beans, french beans, courgettes(coming out of our ears), beetroot, lettuce, radish, all our early spuds(fantastic crop at least 50lb in weight), atlas cabbages(weighing a good few pound in weight), turnips, tumbling toms, strawberries, pak choi, rolet squash, garlic, mange tout and onions.

We have filled the gaps left by our first harvests with main crop spuds(sarpo mira), celeriac, second sowing mange tout(oregon sugar pod), beetroot, more runner beans and yesterday Harry one of the old allotmenters kindly gave me some leek plants. He also came down to my plot to show us how to plant them correctly which was a good lesson for the both of us. We love gaining knowledge from the likes of Harry and Bryn who have so many years of allotmenting behind them and local knowledge yo can not read in a book. Here are a few photos taken over the last few weeks I hope to add more of my harvests in te coming weeks!

Tuesday, 6 July 2010

Firstly appologies for not blogging for while but illness in the family has had me not feeling up to it. I hope to take some more photos tommorow and will update blog as soon as possible but here is a video I did a couple of weeks back to show you all progress. I have been harvesting spuds, beetroot, pak choi, radishes, cabbage atlas, courgettes, tumbling toms, french climbers, runner st george, turnips, strawberies, raspberries and lettuce. I have also planted 2 weeks ago my main crop spuds sarpo mira. I will be back with a more pics soon enjoy the video sorry the captions are slightly out!

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Welcome to our blog

We are newish to allotment gardening and acquired our plot June 2009, we are at Stapleton allotments Bristol. Our allotment site has a country feel as we are surrounded by small holdings and are on the north east boundary of the city.
This blog is a way of keeping photographic and text information of the things we have done. We hope you find it interesting and welcome any comments and tips you may have.

As our knowledge of growing fruit, vegtables and flowers grows we also hope to become more informative and share our tips with you. Enjoy our blog and happy gardening to one and all.